One of my good friends is very in the loop on the tricks and secrets of college admissions (meaning, her mother is obsessed with getting her into an ivy and knows A LOT about the tricks and back door secrets and gossips of college admission processes) and told me that the EARLIER i submit the UC Application, the BETTER. Apparently UCs start reviewing applications RIGHT AWAY and once they find a few people from my school they like, they won’t take any more. Is this process true? It is already 11/4. Will I be setting myself up for failure if I submit them around 11/11 ???
I have the same question, if anyone could answer that would be great.
Although one poster stated that at a UCLA info session that the campus encourages applicants to apply and submit early, I think it is more of a convenience for the campus so they will not have a huge onslaught of apps at the last minute. They will not start filling the spots immediately. It takes time to review the apps, read the essays and make sure the application file is complete If they reviewed apps as they came and made decisions right away, then they would have rolling admissions. Submit your application before Thanksgiving to make sure it gets in with time to spare.
There is a reason you do not get your decision until March.
Unless the “mom” is an adcom at the UC’s, it is all hearsay.
I know many students that submitted close to the deadline and they didn’t fare any better or worse than the early birds.
I’m the person who posted about the UCAL info session.
What they said was that hey LOOK at the date the application was opened and the date the application was submitted (not that they go through it right away, but that they take note of the dates). They said that a student who submits early is organized and excited about applying. That’s the kind of student they want. They did not want students who were waiting right until the deadline to apply.
At least, this is what they SAID to the prospective students. 
@Mom2Engineers: Thank you for the clarification, but you are not the “mom” I was referring in the original post by the OP, but I did reference your post about applying early (but did not recollect the specifics) so definitely needed some clarification on the specifics of what was stated in the info section.
At a UCSD info session last year, the adcom said they’d received 12,000 applications on their first day, and she emphasized it didn’t matter whatsoever if you applied on November 1 or November 30–that all applications received the same evaluation. As for anecdotal evidence, I have a friend with twins who both applied at literally the last minute (or last hour.) They got into the two UCs they applied to–UCSD and UCSB. And one, the better student of the two, was offered Regents Scholarships at both.